Congratulations to Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee on their Iowa victories. Both are authentic, genuine and likeable people. And both represent real change in their respective parties.
The inevitability on Hillary Clinton is now gone. And the plastic, poll driven, slogan of the week, position of the week, politics-as-usual candidates all lost.
But Iowa is a caucus state. What will happen when the Obama and Huckabee wave of populism crashes onto the shores of reality in New Hampshire?
But I take one thing away from today for sure. I really, really like Mike Huckabee. Not his positions. Not his religious dogma. Not his positions on "choice" or homosexuality. Not his bizarre "fair tax" program. I just like the guy.
It all started this morning when Huckabee appeared on the Don Imus radio program. Imus has been literally savaging Huckabee all this week. And Imus side kick Charles McCord brought up Imus' histrionics first thing in the interview. But Huckabee was absolutely unflappable. He was light hearted, funny and, most importantly, consistent in his positions.
Huckabee was as kind and friendly and Imus had been mean and sarcastic. You can bet there will be many more Huckabee appearances on the Imus program.
And it continued tonight. On network after network, all the way from friendly FOX to openly hostile MSNBC, Huckabee won over every critic and came across as a real and genuine guy. He handles the toughest questions with charm and candor.
Huckabee certainly didn't win over Keith Olbermann, but he did manage to disarm him.
So while I still believe Huckabee cannot win the Republican nomination and absolutely cannot win the Presidency, I find the man totally refreshing.
On to New Hampshire.
2 comments:
I'm blown away, Wizard. I like him, too. Just saw him playing guitar on C-Span with a local New Hampshire band "Mama Kicks". He looked loose-as-a-goose natural. Nice smile. Almost picked him as my Republican-of-the-week. Woulda if I'd seen this earlier!
CF. The last half of David Brooks!
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